| I went into this film expecting it to be a relatively fun way to kill a couple hours. I've seen all the previous flix in this series and enjoyed them, but they're not films I'd really want to re-watch frequently. I concede that they are "modern classics" in the action genre. But none of them are in my personal collection. This one is.
The basic story is that a very small group of diabolical computer hacker geniuses decide to bring the entire country to its knees by shutting down pretty much everything--yes, everything. Using their laptop. Their powers seemingly know no bounds--except when it becomes inconvenient for the story--and the big, stupid government is impotent against them. Enter New York detective John McClane (Bruce Willis), the one man in the country--the world?--physically able to survive their gauntlet and stop them. Also enter an oh-so-witty young computer hacker who is apparently the one man in the country--the world?--mentally able to outsmart them via his own computational inclinations. What are the odds that these two would wind up together? 100%. And so the two must track down the bad guys and put a stop to this madness all on their own with no help from anyone (almost).
Thankfully, in addition to that mega-powerful laptop, the bad guys have a couple martial arts prodigies on their team (of course). This provides an excuse for some really awesome fights, featuring the amazing Cyril Raffaelli ("B13"), and the ever-popular Maggie Q. But Bruce Willis is no slouch either. Despite a complete lack of formal martial arts training, his character seems able to hold his own against these two. I should note that he also fares quite well against several non-human foes, such as a fighter jet and a helicopter (in what is probably the single coolest helicopter destruction in cinema history).
All of the action sequences, however implausible, are phenomenal. My typical thought-process trajectory during an action sequence in this film went something like this:
- This movie is retarded
- Oh come on, they wouldn't actually...
- Oh shit, they're actually going to...
- Oh my god, that was the best [X] I've ever...
- This movie is BRILLIANT!
Now, before I get ahead of myself here, I should qualify some of these comments... In addition to being one of the best action movies ever made, this is also one of the stupidest. Bruce Willis's John McClane has surpassed "superhuman" and proceeded ridiculously into "superhero". The bad guys laughably use a mobile laptop to effectively shut down the entire country in a matter of minutes. A baddie gets rammed straight into a concrete wall by an SUV at full speed, then survives to put up an acrobatic fight. And the entire plot disintegrates when we discover that the sole motivation behind the terrorist attack is money--which they can't just get electronically using their super computer wizard powers? But it seems that the filmmakers made a conscious decision to overlook these issues--and MANY more--with a little wink to the audience to let them know it was intentional. They decided to film a Wile E. Coyote cartoon rather than a logical progression of events. And the result is so blatantly over-the-top, so undeniably fun, that you won't stop grinning guiltily until the end credits roll. |
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